1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording/reproducing apparatus and control method thereof utilized for recording on a recording medium, information acquired from various means such as reproducing from a recording medium, receiving of broadcasts or communications, or input from external devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recording and reproducing apparatuses of the related art consisting of so-called double-deck devices and double-cassette devices utilizing magnetic tape as a recording medium, the recording/reproducing units for recording and reproducing audio and video on the magnetic tape are a two-unit set, wherein the information reproduced from magnetic tape on one recording/reproducing unit is recorded on magnetic tape onto the other recording/reproducing unit in a configuration allowing easy dubbing (recording) of various kinds of information.
However using such magnetic tape recording/reproducing units requires performing other incidental operations such as fast-forwarding or rewinding the tape during recording or reproducing, creating the problems that operating the recording/reproducing units took time and operation was inconvenient.
Other apparatus is also capable of operations such as dubbing (copying) various kinds of information utilizing high-speed large capacity recording mediums such as optical disks and magnetic disks for recording and reproducing of digital signals. Use of such recording mediums allows recording and reproducing at high speeds and operation is greatly improved during dubbing and reproducing compared to recording and reproducing on magnetic tape.
However, dubbing these kind of digital signals requires that restrictions be placed to prevent the user from unlimited dubbing (copying) or editing in order to avoid copyright problems.